Simulmedia's Siegel Fancies Self-Serve Ad Planning Model

The company started by the founder of Tacoda and Real Media to help advertisers data-target their TV ad buys now plans to give its customers more hands-on control.

Simulmedia, founded by Dave Morgan, is the latest video ad-tech company to try moving more of its technology to a self-service model.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, the company’s sales VP Marc Siegel says: “We have some really cool things coming out in the next three to six months.

“Our platform, VAMOS, Video Advertising Marketing Operating System, is going to be something that’s really going to be developed to put in the hands of our key customers.

“(It will) allow them to use it more as a self-service tool, allow them to be able to predict and plan on a people basis against really important custom target segments that they’ve built that we can ingest and that we can help to grow their business.”

In the last few months, we have covered moves by Time Inc’s Viant and AOL’s ONE to acquire and launch online software platforms as services that let ad buyers control more of the process.

The move from managed service to self-service is an emerging trend in ad-tech right now. Venture investment is turning away from business models where revenue is linked to ad spend itself, as VCs prefer the certainty of guaranteed recurring revenue and the efficiency of empowering customers to do the heavy lifting some ad-tech providers do behind the scenes.